• A diverse group of thinkers state what is Wisdom? What is the Indic equivalent of wisdom? How do we design education that nurtures Para and Apara Vidya? If used for AI, that would make it inclusive and productive. India’s education system needs to promote curiosity and enhance inherited strengths. 

After my recent article in eSamskriti on the evolution of education in India, a reader asked a simple and profound question: What does wisdom mean?

It was neither, a question about policy nor curriculum or about employability or AI-readiness. It was more fundamental. That question stayed.

The editor of eSamskriti Sanjeev reached out to a diverse group of thinkers, academics, spiritual practitioners, corporate leaders. Their reflections were illuminating, and in many ways, humbling.

A professor from Kolkata reminded us that wisdom is not knowledge. Aristotle called it the art of living well. Socrates located it in the humility of knowing one’s ignorance. Plato suggested it is the journey from illusion to truth. The Stoics framed it as the ability to distinguish what we can control from what we cannot, and to act with inner steadiness despite uncertainty.

Wisdom, he said, integrates intellect, virtue, and experience. It is not accumulation but integration.

Dr. Milind R. Agarwal who has done his thesis on Srimad Bhagavad Gita: Search and Application of Values to Management wrote, “Wisdom is the intuitive ability of a human being to see the invisible and lesser visible cause-effect relationships and patterns in life and creation, and align decisions and actions accordingly.”

Yogacharya Nibha described wisdom more experientially. Wisdom is clear seeing, the ability to respond rather than react. It is discernment, Emotional maturity, Perspective and Compassion. In the Bhagavad Gita, Jnana is awareness beyond ego and fear. It is steadiness amidst turbulence. Not having all the answers, but having clarity in uncertainty.

A corporate leader (B. Srikanth-ex Airtel CFO, ex Vice-President Unilever) reframed the discussion for the AI age. If information is instant and intelligence augmented, why do we still need experienced people? Because algorithms optimise. Humans take accountability. Experience carries memory of trade-offs. Wisdom, in that context, is lived trade-offs. It understands unintended consequences.

Another learned voice added a deeply Indian lens. The concept of “wisdom” as a standalone abstraction may not exist in classical Indian thought. The Mundaka Upanishad speaks instead of Apara Vidya, worldly knowledge, including scriptures, sciences, and arts, and Para Vidya, higher knowledge that leads to self-realization.

Perhaps what we loosely call wisdom is an integration of Apara and Para Vidya. Both can co-exist and in a sense are inter-dependent.

Competence in the world. Clarity within oneself.

For the past two weeks, I have been quietly observing. In meetings. In classrooms. Across age groups.

I have consciously taken a step back in conversations and weighed interactions in the context of wisdom. Where is it visible? Where is it absent? Where is the real gap?

One pattern troubles me. We have cultivated a form of servile thinking. Many hesitate to voice their views. Hierarchy often defines who is entitled to think aloud. Perhaps this is colonial residue. Perhaps it predates colonialism. India was, after all at some point structured around clearly defined hierarchies.

But in today’s context, the effect is stark. We are grooming a vast majority of people to act, not to think.

In classrooms, students often seek the “right answer,” not the right question. In organisations, young professionals wait for instructions rather than challenge assumptions. Even in informal settings, disagreement is frequently muted. 

In a world where action is being increasingly taught to machines, thinking is our most precious human capability. Discernment cannot be automated. Moral judgment cannot be outsourced. Perspective cannot be downloaded.

If education does not consciously cultivate the courage to think, to question, to disagree respectfully, then we are producing efficient executors in an era that demands reflective leaders.

The second observation is subtler but equally important. We are losing respect for physical capability.

Ancient systems valued self-sufficiency. Individuals were trained not only intellectually but physically, to build, to grow, to repair, to sustain. Even today, in many Western societies, practical competence is respected. There is dignity in doing. Yet in urban India, with gig workers available at the other end of an app, we are steadily outsourcing basic skills. Convenience is replacing capability. Physical engagement is declining.

The mind is over-stimulated; the body is under utilised. 

But there is a another aspect to this which speaks to the fundamental definition of how dignity of labour has evolved. It affects how we value professions. It affects what we consider “aspirational. 

Recently, at an Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore event, an agriculture entrepreneur spoke about declining soil quality and farmer distress. His point was simple: our farmers are not making money because we are not investing in soil knowledge, scientific farming, and long-term sustainability. As I reflected on this, a discomforting thought emerged.

Nearly 80% of jobs today remain marginal or low-skilled. Yet we are pulling children away from inherited strengths, agriculture, craftsmanship, traditional trades, and asking them to learn westernized education. Families incur enormous financial strain educating their children through degrees disconnected from lived reality. Many emerge as average employees in uncertain markets.

Instead WHAT IF -

1. We elevated agricultural science!

2. An agricultural graduate commanded the same respect, social and financial, as a computer engineer!

3. We invested in making farmers soil scientists, data-enabled cultivators and climate strategists!

4. The cut off for agricultural scientist for higher than the cut off for engineering entrances perhaps, as we still see our world through the lens of marks, which is an altogether different problem to solve for anyways.

Perhaps wisdom lies in enhancing inherited strengths, not erasing them.

This is not about romanticizing the past. It is about recognising embedded knowledge systems. There is generational memory in agriculture, intuition in craft and tacit knowledge in trade. Education should refine and elevate these strengths, not invalidate them.

The final reflection came from listening to Nitin Paranjpe’s (Chairman Hindustan Unilever Ltd) address at the 44th Palkivala Memorial Lecture on Artificial Intelligence for the Aam Aadmi.

He made a striking observation. For most of recorded history, India was among the world’s most prosperous civilizations. We lost ground when we missed the Industrial Revolution. That inflection point reshaped global power.

AI is another such inflection point.

Whether we lead or lag is not preordained. It is a function of how we prepare and use wisdom. The question is not whether AI will arrive. It already has. The question is whether we approach it with Apara Vidya alone, technical competence, or with Para Vidya as well, ethical clarity, societal responsibility, long-term vision.

If we combine both, we could shape AI for inclusion, for productivity, for prosperity. If we do not, we risk repeating history.

So I return to the question that started this journey.

How do we design education that nurtures both Para and Apara Vidya?

That builds thinkers, not just executors. That restores dignity to physical skill alongside intellectual rigour. That empowers individuals to question hierarchy respectfully. That strengthens inherited capabilities rather than dismissing them. That prepares us to use AI but to guide it with discernment.

I am yet to have a ready framework but am increasingly convinced that the future of education is about future-worthiness not merely about future-readiness that perhaps does not begin with answers.  

Perhaps it begins with the courage to ask better questions stimulated by Zigyasa-curiosity and the humility to reflect on them.

V Srinivas, author of Awakening the Nation-Rediscovering the spirit of India with Swami Vivekananda quoted Swami Vivekananda, “If there is one word that you find coming out like a bomb from the Upanishads, bursting like a bomb-shell upon masses of ignorance, is the word FEARLESSNESS.” Lectures Colombo to Almora 67.2 

He adds that ideas and nations need to intermingle and work in harmony learning together. Just as education, which nurtures Para and Apara Vidya.

With this approach, I seek your ideas and thoughts in all humility. You could post a comment below (need to register first) or email esamskriti108@gmail and the Editor shall post it on your behalf. 

Author Sandhya Sriram is a Chartered Accountant by education. She works with a leading hospital group in India.

Editor Notes

1. Swami Chidananda of the Divine Life Society wrote in Ponder these Truths, “The Upanishads spoke about the higher knowledge and the lesser knowledge – para vidya and apara vidya. Those who know only the lesser knowledge, apara vidya, are very advanced in knowledge, but they lack wisdom. They know about everything else, but they do not know about themselves. Therefore, they fall a prey to egoism, to selfishness, to megalomania. They fall a prey to small goals dictated by the selfish view of things. They do not see divinity in humanity.”

2. Mundaka Upanishad by T N Sethumadhavanji – “It is part of the Atharva Veda. Those who know Brahman, replied Angiras, say that there are two kinds of knowledge, the higher [para] and the lower [apara]. The lower is knowledge of the Vedas [the Rik, the Sama, the Yajur, and the Atharva], and also of phonetics, ceremonials, grammar, etymology, metre, and astrology. The higher is knowledge of that by which one knows the Changeless Reality. [M.U. 1:1:4-5] Hence, the Upanishad exhorts the aspirants who are endowed with discrimination to cultivate dispassion, austerity, faith, concentration and love for solitude for the attainment of salvation or immortality and eternal bliss.” For another write-up on Mundaka Upanishad

Also read

1. Para and Apara Vidya in The Hindu and Ramana Maharshi

2. Mundaka Upanishad

3. Nitin Paranjpee address on AI for the Aam Aadmi (60 minutes) – speaks about AI risks and opportunities/benefits too. 

4. AI, Conscious and the Self by Subhash Kak (Scientist and Indic Scholar) To hear his talk on same subject (32 minutes)

To read all articles on Education